The No. 25 Clemson Tigers bounced back from a Week 1 loss to throttle visiting Charleston Southern 66-17 in the home opener at Memorial Stadium on Saturday.
The Tigers got off to a rough start and only led by a touchdown at halftime, but both sides of the ball got hot and took care of business to secure the easy victory by outsourcing the Bucs 42-0 in the second half.
Ups
- Clemson racked up 679 yards, the most since putting up 701 against Wofford in 2019. The Tigers had 274 rushing and 405 passing on 87 plays.
- Cade Klubnik wasn’t perfect, but he threw a career-best four touchdowns and completed 76% of his passes for 315 yards, also a career-high.
- Backup QB Hunter Helms completed all five of his passes while third-string Paul Tyson completed all three of his to give the Tigers an 80% completion percentage for the game.
- Eight total running backs received a carry in this game with four going for at least 40 yards, including Will Shipley, who led the team with 73 yards on nine carries.
- Phil Mafah, who rushed for 59 yards on nine carries, recorded the first multi-rushing TD game of his career with two scores on the ground.
- WR Beaux Collins went off for 137 receiving yards on seven catches, including a 69-yard touchdown, his first of the season.
- Troy Stellato caught a career-high 5 receptions for 51 yards.
- The Tigers’ stop unit held CSU’s offense to 73 total yards. It marked the third time in as many seasons that Clemson’s kept an opponent under 100 yards and the fifth time of the Dabo Swinney era. The Tigers also did it in 2014 and 2009.
- Clemson held the Bucs to just 12 rushing yards and four first downs.
- Freshman defensive end T.J. Parker recorded three tackles for a loss and one QB hurry in just his second career game.
Downs
- The turnover bug got Clemson for the second consecutive week. Klubnik fumbled and threw an interception that was returned by Leon Thomas for a touchdown in the first quarter to give CSU 14 points.
- Klubnik also got called for intentional grounding when he made a poor attempt to get rid of the ball when a CSU defender came unblocked right at him.
- Clemson started slow and didn’t dominate up front right away. There were also several receivers open that Klubnik didn’t see early.
- Clemson got caught napping on an onside kick attempt that CSU recovered early in the game.
- The Tigers went for it on three fourth downs, which feels like a lot against a team of this caliber. They converted two of them.
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